


Pieces of Jackson Whittemore

by theskyeskye



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: But not really incest, Cousin Incest, Drabble Collection, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Triggers, just kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-12
Updated: 2014-03-25
Packaged: 2017-12-23 06:46:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Underage
Chapters: 49
Words: 18,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/923225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskyeskye/pseuds/theskyeskye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles written about Jackson, past, present, and future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Future - Oh familiar town your only crime was familiarity

**Author's Note:**

> These are a bunch of different drabbles I've written for different reasons over on tumblr. I decided to compile them here and share because I like to share and I feel as though I have not posted nearly enough stuff lately. Anyway, enjoy.

The first thing Jackson realized when he started to get closer to Beacon Hills again was that there were scents he recognized. His sharply attuned senses could pick up his favourite restaurants, the smell of the trees, even the water treatment plant. He could smell it all and the sensory intake brought his skin to life, prickling with memories he'd not been able to shake since he left over a year ago.

When he stopped for gas just within the limits, he felt already like he was coming to life again. His muscles were jumping with the urge to shed his skin and take off into the woods to roll in familiar grasses and rub his face in familiar earth. He'd left to get away from everything familiar, and now, as he took it all in, bit by bit, he realized just how much he'd missed it.

He knew this homecoming was going to be bittersweet, after all, he didn't expect to see anyone he knew right away. He didn't plan to try and seek out Scott or Stiles... Not even Lydia, even if she was the one he wanted to find the most. His main concern was getting himself stable first. A good job, get into school, it'll all be worth it if he just waits. Who knows, perhaps those people will come to him.

There's a niggling in the back of his mind, that he should go to Derek. The man had, after all, been the one who made him what he is. He was the Alpha Jackson was meant to follow. He was a part of Derek's pack... If Derek even wanted him.

Something in Jackson's stomach clenched and he squashed that feeling and put on a cheap grin for no one.

Of course Derek would want him in the pack.

He was Jackson fucking Whittemore. _Everyone_ wanted him. He'd stopped himself in recent months from vocalizing such prideful mantras, but in the privacy of his own mind he felt free to think it.

With his tank full he found a hotel room for the night. Tomorrow he'd look for a job he was sure he'd have no trouble finding, and then it was on to an apartment near his college... Everything would be perfect. Everything would be fine. Everything would be just the way he hoped...

Or his feet might begin to itch and wander away from this place again.


	2. Future - Breathe In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson has returned to Beacon Hills alone.

Jackson took it all in as he walked around the tiny studio apartment. His father had pulled some strings for him, and for once, Jackson didn't take that for granted. The agreement with his parents was, that so long as he kept a job and stayed in school, they'd pay for the place. It was nothing special but... It was truly his. Eighteen years old and out on his own, but not completely. Irvine wasn't terribly far away and his parents would keep in touch, but he needed that distance and freedom. He couldn't hide what he was from them forever. Every day he'd lived with them after turning was a risk.

He'd barely gotten through the black ooze coming out of his body, and then the Kanima...

Jackon's hand flew up to grasp at the back of his neck as he took a deep breath in and closed his eyes tight. He dug his fingers into those spaces that had scarred over before he turned. He bore the mark from his Alpha and it had been useful to Jackson in the past year. Each time those thoughts, those fleeting flashes of memory of killing people, being under someones spell started to plague him he'd grasp at the back of his neck for those claw marks. When he pressed his fingers in, he was flooded with the memory of Derek, the day he'd given him that scar. It was faint, faded, barely visible, but Jackson could feel it under his skin, crawling and itching.

To push there, to touch there, flooded him with relief.

_Exhale_...

And just like that the memories were gone and Jackson began to unpack what little he had into the dresser.


	3. Future - Did you think they'd end?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson has returned to Beacon Hills alone.

He can't sleep properly. It's his own fault for being so far from where every bit of his instincts say he should be. He just can't entirely commit yet, not until he was sure that he'll be welcomed. And that's what he wants. He wants warmth, acceptance, welcome, and strength. He doesn't want to feel helpless, like a survivor who shouldn't have survived. From the accident before he was born, to his death on the field, to his next in the warehouse-- why was he still getting chances when people who deserved better were already buried six feet under. His mind hissed poison at him, insecurity, self-loathing... He had to do better, he was given all the opportunity in the world, he had to do better. He owed it to everything and everyone to be the best he could be--

Yet here he was, laid on his mattress on the floor of his studio apartment, tangled in sheets, sweating, drenching fabric and panting for breath he didn't know he was getting. He was sweating like...

_Sweating like everything around him was on fire_.

Distressing calls, screams, howls, scraped along the inside of his skull as he tossed on the bed, leaving rivulets of pain dancing behind his eyes and all along his body. Every nerve ending is alive but he is still asleep. His claws come out as he scrambles like a restless dog, running after something in its slumbering hours. They tear through fabric, shredding his pillows and leave batting along the mattress in chunks. His sheets have holes and his teeth bite through his lip, only to heal a few moments later.

Screams and smoke. He can't breathe, the thick, black smog that only exists in his mind is filling up his senses. He feels like a _frightened child_ , he feels like _he's going to die_. He parts his lips and gives a startled growl, a cry, bitten off, and heard by no one near.

He wakes with a start, soaked and chilly as the flames dissipated with the first sight of moonlight spilling through his window and across his sheets. Had he left it open?

He looks up and watches his cheap curtains flutter with the slight breeze coming through the open window. He doesn't remember opening it, but he feels comforted by it.

He looks around at his ruined bedding as he slowly sits up, his fingers finding their way up to the back of his neck as they are want to do whenever he feels this alone, this frightened, and this helpless to help himself... Or anyone else.

He wonders if these nightmares will ever end, or if they will eventually burn him alive.


	4. Future - [alone] Under the Moon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson has returned to Beacon Hills alone.

He's had to change alone since he was turned. That was normal. Being alone was normal. Jackson was used to it. Used to it but not numb to it. The loneliness he felt often became unbearable and he had a habit of just locking himself in the bathroom, lying in the tub, and waiting for the fevery itch of the moonlight to pass.

His first moon back in Beacon Hills since the whole ordeal with the kanima was proving to be just as lonely as all the ones he'd endured in Irvine. No surprise there, not really. He had no one right now. His pack was distant, probably ignoring him intentionally. Maybe he had no place here at all. Maybe this was all a mistake. He couldn't possibly know, not when his mind was so clouded. He shuffled home from work feeling like a lightening rod, drawing in all the electricity in the air around him. Every noise, every smell, every sensation that crossed his skin, all heightened by the lunar glow, all of them were pricking at his skin like needles. Everything about his body felt two sizes two small. And then he opened the door and looked at his home (if you could call it that) case in the pale light coming through the window and doorway.

Alone. He was alone.

His little studio apartment felt so much smaller when he shut, locked, and bolted the door behind him. He took in all of it. He took in his bare bones furniture, his mattress on the floor with its shredded sheets that needed replacing, his discolored curtains that had been here when he moved in, and his heart sank. He felt angrier than he could ever remember feeling. He felt angry and he felt... low. He felt like he could melt into the shadows and disappear.

People liked to call Jackson cold. They thought he was this _heartless_ person, and he supposed he'd only proved them all right when he became the kanima rather than a wolf right away. He couldn't begrudge them this assessment because it was what he'd tried to project from adolescence. But Jackson's problem had never been that he was heartless or that he'd been unfeeling. No. The truth was, he felt _too much_. He felt so much that sometimes he felt like he might swell to bursting.

Sometimes he did. Sometimes he exploded.

Tonight, every pent up emotion pushed under his ribcage like thick, black vines, slick with his poisonous memories and toxic feelings, wrapping around the bones and shoving them outward until they snapped through his skin, tearing him apart to leave him a mess on the floor.

He stumbled forward and dropped to his bed, knees hitting the mattress with  dull thud. His clawed hands reached up to grasp at the sides of his head, dragging little lines of blood behind them as he scratched himself, only to feel those rivers of red heal slowly again. Tiny tendrils of flesh and muscle and nerve snapping back together like microscopic tendrils with minds of their own. Healed.

If only he could heal the ache in his chest.

The moon was high, pouring through the ratty drapes and spilling into his darkened apartment. In his solitude he howled until his throat felt like it might bleed.

And then he howled again.


	5. Future - A Kiss for Lydia

It was the way the moon hit her cheek, and the stars seemed to shine back at him in her honey-rich eyes. She wasn’t quite looking at him, but cast in this nighttime glow she looked ethereal.

He brushed his knuckles across the plump apple of her rosied cheek, the chilly breeze had nipped her nose to match them. She looked up at the gentle gesture of affection the beginnings of his name tumbling out of her mouth on a giggle.

“ _Jacks—_ ” her glossed lips were shimmering, catching his keen eyes, and he didn’t wait, he didn’t hesitate. He leaned in, and his lips took hers. Quickly and fervently, they closed over her own and held her there, bringing warmth back to her face.


	6. Future - A Kiss for Danny

He does it because he’s frustrated. The way Danny’s hand presses against his chest makes Jackson’s body feel too tight and confining all at once.The way his arm loops tightly around the slimness of his waist and draws him near makes him crazy.

“ _Woah, you’ve had too much, lets get you…_ ”

Jackson isn’t listening to Danny’s level headed advice. He’s just thinking about how those strong hands leave him weaker in the knees when they touch and grab to support him. He’s thinking about how safe Danny makes him feel in the quietest hours of the early morning when he’s crashed on Danny’s floor. How safe he makes him feel in the rushing rhythm of the night, out in public, surrounded by strangers all looking at Jackson, wanting things from him Danny knows he can’t or won’t give.

He’s thinking about how Danny’s lips form words that are stern but a comfort in how they coax and scold him; he’s thinking about how much he’d like to kiss them again. And that… that _frustrates_ him. The last time he’d tried he’d been pushed away.

If Danny didn’t want him… If Danny didn’t _want_ Jackson to kiss him… He shouldn’t have been _so damn good_.

So he shushes Danny, clumsy, drunken fingers bumping over his lips to silence him. He feels that pair of lips twist into a frown under his fingers and he pulls them away.

He leans in, and he misses, catching the side of Danny’s mouth. Danny’s lips are just slightly open, frozen mid-sentence with surprise. The taste of what he’d been drinking was still lingering there. Jackson’s forehead slips against his cheek as he pulls away. He wants to ask Danny why… _Why he doesn’t love him_ …

He doesn’t ask that. Instead he let’s his friend silently escort him out of the bar. The strong arm around Jackson’s waist just a little bit gentler than it had been before.


	7. Future - A Kiss for Erica

He notices the moment she’s behind him, and she smells incredible. He’s not sure if that’s because she’s like him… A beta. A _wolf_. It’s something earthy, but floral, and somehow… crisp and clean. She smells like a rainy spring day and she smells like a warm summer evening. He turns and she’s just smiling at him, saying something… All he can hear are the cadences of her voice; no words can break through the haze.

He reaches out, his fingers slipping up her neck and backward into soft, golden wheat hair. He can feel each individual strand against his palm and he hears her gasp slightly, but he doesn’t give pause to ask why. He looks at her face, her big, round eyes, too much make-up making them almost look lost. Buried beneath paint that she wore like armor. She didn’t need it to be empowered but he understood the sentiment of wanting to separate yourself completely from something you used to be. Something people once saw you as could haunt you.

"You were always…" he doesn’t finish the statement, because it wouldn’t mean anything now. Not now that she felt what she’d always truly been, under her disease and the plain, boxy clothes she hid herself in. Beneath it all, she’d always been beautiful.

He leaned in and his lips brushed over hers, so subtle and gentle it wasn’t quite a kiss. Just a gentle, adoring caress. She was pack, and that brief moment made him feel closer to her than ever before. She was _his_ pack… He would never let her not feel every bit as wonderful as he knew her to be.


	8. Future - A Perfect Fit [Scott]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill: It's the middle of the night; Jackson's sleeping soundly in bed as the rain storm rages outside. Suddenly, he hears a tapping on the window...

Jackson’s body had finally stopped fighting sleep; exhaustion had taken its toll and claimed him. His head was nestled against the mattress, linens and pillows all kicked and torn, left in shreds all around him. He was sleeping, not deeply, but well enough that the thunder was like a lullaby.

That’s when he heard it— faint and urgent, _rat-tat-tat-tat_! His nose wrinkled and his face twitched as he fought to ignore the noise. It didn’t cease, only sounded again, louder this time and bidding Jackson to wake from sleep he so desperately needed.

He was upright in moments, sitting slumped in his bed while rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his hands.

 _Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat— Jackson_?

Jackson was suddenly alert as he heard the call of his name. It was a quiet whisper but the strength of his ears made the owner of the call immediately obvious. Without thinking, he jumped into action, up off the bed to see Scott lingering outside his bedroom window. With a grimace he opened the window and before Scott could say a word, Jackson was dragging him through the open space and into the apartment. He dumped the other wolf on the floor like a sack of flour, turning his back to close the window once more.

“What the hell, McCall?” Jackson’s voice was a low, sleep-weary rasp, making him sound more cross than he truly was. Scott seemed visibly shaken, and by now, he usually had a million words a minute spilling from his mouth. _Words words words_ …

Words got in the way of so much. So when Scott opened his mouth to speak, Jackson lifted his fingers, shushing Scott and shaking his head.

“Take that wet shit off,” he said, shuffling past Scott to the bathroom where he retrieved a towel. When he got back he threw it, full force at Scott’s face, finding himself smiling just slightly at the noise of protest Scott made. He wasn’t paying attention. He was just digging into his drawers for a t-shirt and a pair of gym-shorts that Scott could change into.

He’d seen Scott naked before. More times than he liked to think about. Yet somehow, when he turned back toward him, catching him mostly undressed, his boxers sopping wet and stuck to every curve of his skin, that was somehow more revealing. All at once the moment felt too intimate and Jackson was throwing him the dry clothes.

“They might be a little small for you,” Jackson said quietly, glancing away as Scott slipped out of the last of his damp clothes and into Jackson’s loaned ones.

“Nah,” Scott said, smiling in that lopsided way that was completely and utterly him, “they’re a perfect fit.”

 


	9. Future - Might Tell You Tonight [Allison]

Jackson’s fingers splayed across the surface of his dresser, slowly sliding along until they came across slips of paper and napkins. Numbers from women who flirted with him at the door of the bar he worked at now. Being a bouncer had its perks, he supposed, but— there in the stack was something else. Something important, heavy with memories and emotions. He pushed aside the collected digits like they were just dust and dirt to get to pictures and a hand-written note. She everything, wasn’t she? He couldn’t ignore that— maybe it was time he told Allison the absolute truth.


	10. Future - Siren Song [Danny]

Danny was good at pushing Jackson away, maybe that’s why Jackson was so persistent. He had a strange way of mimicking the motions of intimacy and love without truly ever admitting that that was what he was hiding. Behind those sharp blue eyes laid secrets, buried under sharp remarks and too much unwanted affection, Danny could sense something bigger, darker in Jackson. Jackson was full of sharp remarks, snide, and aloof, but it was all just a front to cover up something much worse.

It was love that simply couldn’t be returned. So Danny let him stay, out of mercy.


	11. Future - Makin' Out [Scott]

Jackson could be warm when he wanted to be; Scott was slowly learning. He didn’t mind hearing the half-hearted insults, the pleas for Scott to shut up, grow up, stop it, _why do you have to be so_ … Scott hadn’t felt this way before. There wasn’t the strange hopelessness he felt when he’d fallen in love with Allison. No, with Jackson things came slowly, with difficulty, like hard won battles, but there was a comfort in seeing Jackson, not change, but _soften_.

Jackson slowly opened and Scott could slip inside, wrap his arms around the other young man and touch in all the soft spaces that he’d never seen before but had always known were there. He could think to himself as Jackson pushed him feebly away only to pull him closer the next time they embraced and kissed; _I told you so_.


	12. Future - Not My Slave [Lydia]

He’d made the mistake once of pushing Lydia into this box. He’d subtly urged her into a role that she didn’t need to be in. She was so much brighter, so much more beautiful than he’d ever realized in high school. He didn’t want her to stifle herself now, he didn’t want to see her trying to be perfect. He wanted her, flaws and all. He wanted to see her as she really was. And how could he possibly explain to her how different things would be? He tried, with kisses, with touches, with gentle urges to wait for the right moment.

He could only lean in her ear and whisper the truth; “I love you more than ever.”


	13. Future - Momentum [Danny]

This wasn’t what they were supposed to be. It was a change in their pattern. A break in the routine. Danny had always held Jackson far enough away, insisted that Jackson was not his type, that he couldn’t possibly…

Jackson was even worse still. He wouldn’t let anyone in, Danny had always come closest to what was real about Jackson and what wasn’t. They couldn’t do this. This was a dangerous mistake. This was going to hurt… But as Jackson leaned up to close that distance, Danny didn’t move away, he fell in, and together they rushed to the bottom.


	14. Future - Wasted Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson forgets [ignores] his own birthday.

_Oh_ \-- He caught his reflection in the mirror and as he took note of his building stubble all along his jaw he realized what today was. His gut twisted and he looked toward his phone. It had gone off several times today but he'd slept through it and ignored them all after a late night at work. He'd slept and eaten and showered and wandered around half dressed all day. He'd gone outside and smoked one cigarette. Just the one. He'd come back in and taken another nap. It was getting to be quite late in the day now and he'd cut everyone off _all day_.

He'd studied and watched television after his nap, all the while ignoring the phone calls coming in from his relatives. His mom, his dad, his aunts and uncles. People he didn't feel like talking to. He'd never once stopped to consider why they were calling him.

It wasn't until just then, when he was contemplating getting dressed and going out, that it came to him in a rush. _Oh man_...

He stared at his phone and felt a sinking sensation unlike anything he'd felt in a while. He'd been ignoring the well wishes of his family and they probably thought he was out getting wasted or something. He'd always been a bit irresponsible, previous years had proved that, and his parents were probably worried by now, having been the first to call him early that morning.

He crossed the space between the bathroom door and the coffee table where his phone rested and picked the little device up.

_**4 New Voicemails**_.

He contemplated it for a few minutes. He contemplated whether or not he wanted to call _anyone_ back, if he wanted to talk, say thanks, pretend to be **happy**... He sighed and tossed the phone on the couch and went back to bed. He was full of regret and defeat. Most of all he was too enveloped in his own self pity to want to celebrate anything.

_Fuck today_ , he thought to himself, and he curled up under the bedding again, taking in the scent of the last person who'd been here for a bit of comfort, hoping he could go back to sleep and pretend today hadn't happened at all.


	15. Future - A Different Kind of Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson dreams intimately of someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is NSFW.

His skin was hot and too tight as his mind refused to quiet while he slept. For a change, the heat didn't come from nightmarish flames. Sweat slicked his body as he hummed softly, a quiet, earthy noise, low in his throat, not quite animal and not quiet human. It was a noise of approval, encouragement, pleasure, deep in its tone but gentle still.

The heat he was feeling came from lips pressed against him supplied by his fervent imagination while he slept. His hips rocked upward against a body that wasn't really there, thought it felt like it. The sensation of friction, of slickness, of base connection, all were too light, and yet too overwhelming. He dreamed of kisses, lewd and wet across his chest and against his neck and shoulder, leaving bruise marks in their wake. They left him owned without owning him. Dreaming of those marks nearly made them real. Were Jackson aware he was dreaming he might have feared for what his subconscious desired from this person, this being, this body against his. He strained against his boxer-briefs, his fingers twisting into the sheets, claws tearing fresh holes in the fabric wile he moved his hips to get more of something he didn't have to begin with.

His lips parted, wet and reddened, but unkissed though he'd never dreamed more sensual kisses in his life, and he gave a near silent, breath filled moan. It was honest and uninhibited, because in his ear he was asked for more, he was encouraged, gently urged by the voice of the one he was so submitted to. His legs shifted in the sheets, toes curling into the fabric as his muscles moved on impulse, responding to the lover in his mind.

Teasing whispers and groaning laughter filled his ears while hands explored places they ought to not touch, leaving Jackson's skin covered in goosebumps. The touch felt so real and so vivid, even though it was merely a dream. The wetness of tongue against his skin and the pleasure of stimulation around his sex were vivid, nearly tangible, lighting up every nerve in his body as he writhed. His spine bowed away from the bed and his breath came in hard, needy gulps as he was lost to the wonderful carnality of it all.

The sounds he made could only be described as needy. They were feeble whines from the back of his throat, mingling with growling sounds from deep in his chest. Were anyone around to hear it they might be concerned or confused. These noises were so open and so vulnerable, Jackson flushed, even in his dream.

He felt like he was on the precipice-- right there at the edge-- _so close_. If he could just get a little bit more, a little bit harder, a little bit stronger he could...

But then it died down, his dream suddenly fizzling and his eyes opening, watery and sensitive to the light pouring into his pitch black bedroom from the hallway. This always happened to him. Right at his peak his mind would pull back and his body would stir, never letting him reach that moment of bliss. No, he'd simply wake up, aching, swollen, breathing hard and heavy with the images he'd been so wrapped up in still lingering in his mind. This time was no different. He propped himself up on his elbows and found himself glaring between his legs at the wet patch in the front of his underwear. He was still so stiff, still so sensitive, and still needing release.

In one fluid movement he turned onto his stomach and thrust his hips against his mattress, once, twice, a third time...

It was undignified, he knew that, rutting against his sheets like a dog in heat, but he couldn't help himself. He was only glad no one saw it as he found relief there, in his embarrassingly vulgar motions. He simply stripped off his briefs and tossed them aside, having no use for them now that they were dirty. He rolled to the empty side of the bed where the sheets were still cool, having not been occupied recently and let them ease the burn of his skin.

He shut his eyes and wheezed a soft groan, the images and sounds returning to him briefly, but they were fading fast, trickling away as he fell deeply asleep once more.


	16. Future - Breaking Scott

He didn’t think about it as he pulled away, what drawing his hand back, what dodging Scott’s eyes could do. He was hurt, but Scott was hurting too. He didn’t consider what it might mean if he didn’t reassure Scott that he wouldn’t go disappearing again as he walked out the door. He didn’t think about how desperate Scott sounded when he called after him, begging to be heard— _begging him_. All he could think about was keeping Scott safe, keeping him front getting hurt… He’d always tried to make sure Scott didn’t get hurt. Then he became that monster and he was the dangerous one… He had to get away. Away from everyone. Away from Scott.

He didn’t think beyond the realm of himself and what _his_ idea of safe really was long enough to realize that the thing that hurt Scott most was watching him walk away. Jackson left Scott thinking he’d failed, all while feeling like a failure himself.


	17. Future - Intimacy [Lydia]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is NSFW.

Her skin was like a smooth curtain, stretched delicately over her muscles and bones, sculpted and shaped into this perfectly soft creature. Each rise and fall, every dip and peak, so delicate under his touch. He could smell her so strongly. The lotion she used after she showered lingered with the fragrant musk of her sweat and her body’s wetness. His fingers glided over her deep and full curves, sliding over her pale thighs, cast in an ethereal glow of the moon coming through the window. He nestled between her breasts, taking in the scent and the feel of the silky skin against his cheeks kissing and biting gently at her sternum as he pushed her legs apart.

He wanted to taste her, drink her in, and give her every bit of pleasure he got from just being there with her. He wanted to hear her cry and know that no one else would or could ever, not like he did. He slid down, delving into her heat and her slickness, sliding his tongue along the curve of her, feeling her legs jerk inward, hearing her heartbeat increase and her breath hitch. She was inhibited and shy, just like the first time, just like every time before. He loved her like this. Much as he loved her when she was strong, he almost loved her more when she was purely, openly, and beautifully vulnerable.


	18. Future - Warmth [Lydia]

It didn’t bother her, the way sometimes he fell asleep shortly after. In fact, these were moments she cherished. Jackson was so open when he was sleeping. She could see everything about him plain as day. No careful expressions, no posturing. Just… Jackson. She stroked her fingers along the planes of his face down his neck and took him in.

She fell in love with Jackson in the first place because of moments like this. She never realized before, how much she’d come to cherish them until they were gone. She was so deep in thought she didn’t start to notice him stir. Not at first… no. For those few moments while he slept, he was totally honest, and totally hers.


	19. Future - Another Kiss for Lydia

She never didn’t look good to him. He couldn’t help himself when it came to her. She smelled so inviting and she looked so wonderful, swaddled in one of his dress shirts, far too big for her. She was a vision of pale skin, purple fabric, and damp red hair. Fresh from a shower, still smelling of shampoo. He moved in and pressed a knee into the couch as he ran his nose up the side of her thigh, growling playfully as he pushed the fabric of his shirt out of the way of her hip.

He grasped the band of her underwear with this teeth and tugged it, letting it snap back into place with a soft growl and then he kissed her there, over the thin strip of frabric, just taking in the smell of her and how close he was to the heat of her body and the source of her perfect smell.

“You have got to stop looking so gorgeous, I will never be able to control myself..”


	20. Future - A Kiss for Stiles

He couldn’t help himself. That was his excuse. Stiles was reading something, pouring over a book, advanced chem or something. His lips moved with the words he read, just subtly so. Occasionally his tongue would slip over them to wet them while he read. Jackson was sitting across from him at the library, trying to do a bit of work himself. He had a paper due, after all, but…

Stiles just looked so… kissable. So he stood, reaching out to wrap his fingers in the front of Stiles shirt. He pulled him up and forward, laughing a little at the startled response he got, and then he leaned over the table between them and licked his lips open so he could kiss him deeply, and taste the silent words he’d been mouthing this whole time.


	21. Future - An accidental Kiss for Derek

It wasn’t intentional. No, _really_ … It wasn’t. It was just a matter of tumbling the wrong way at the wrong time. Derek was hard on him when they trained. He knew Jackson’s limitations, and they were few and far between. He was, despite being a cocky dick for most of their relationship, actually a pretty good Beta.

So when Jackson leaped at him and they collided, the clumsy knock of their foreheads, and then lips was nothing less than awkward, painful, and jarring. Jackson was quick, as soon as he realized his mouth was resting against Derek’s own while they caught their breath, to roll off him.

He scrambled to his feet and covered his mouth with one hand, sticking the other out as if that would stave off any sort of attack from Derek. It had been an accident but that didn’t make it any less terrifying.

“Sorry, uh, yeah sorry, I didn’t mean to uh…y…you uh… **sorry.** I’m gonna…” he started to back away slowly, thinking that maybe now would be a good time to just _run_.


	22. Future - A Kiss for Peter

He was out of his mind. The moon wasn’t even shining yet, but he could feel it. He could feel it coursing through his veins like a toxin, just taking hold of him. That’s why he _ **ran**_. He ran from his apartment, bare feet, no shirt, and ran toward _anything_ … _Anything at all_. He was seeking something to keep him grounded because he felt like he would tear out of his skin at any second and float away into non-existence. He didn’t realize he was running until he was already far away from his home and there was earth beneath his toes.

That was how he caught the scent— A scent that smelled like pack. Smelled like comfort… Smelled like stability. Had he been more aware of his surroundings and his memories of who that scent belonged to he might have had the sense to run away. His nose was betraying his mind and he just followed it. He followed it to its source, feeling lost and alone and nearly out of touch with his humanity. He was afraid and at the same time, **exhilarated**. What was _happening_ to him? He’d never felt like this during the moon before—

When he saw Peter he was overcome. With what or why he couldn’t be sure, he just knew that he’d found what he’d been looking for ( _he should have known better but his mind was so far lost to instinct_ ) while he was running. He just moved, all at once, grasping at the front of the man’s shirt and pulling him in. He bumped his forehead against the other wolf’s chin and let out a soft whine. He felt at ease, nestling in against someone he should have been running from. He bared his throat and leaned in, pressing a series of affectionate and needy kisses to Peter’s chest and collar and neck, anywhere he could reach, while his claws began to extend and tear the fabric beneath them. He was desperately trying to find some solace where there was none to be found.


	23. Past - What's a Boy to do?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson is too young to know how to deal with the fact that Isaac's father is abusing him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a personal headcanon of mine, since we never really got to get into what happened with Isaac and Jackson.

Jackson was six the first time he noticed Isaac. Of course he knew Isaac, but that was not the same as noticing. They'd always lived in this neighborhood together. They rode their bikes and played games with the other neighborhood kids with rules they'd made up all on their own. Games that made sense to them, and only them. Isaac had an imagination that Jackson could only hope to follow along with. There were obligatory invites to birthdays, and of course... The occasional sleepover.

Tonight Jackson was six. It was his birthday and he was another year older. A few of the neighborhood kids had come to his party but his mother had said he could only have one boy stay over. That boy was Isaac, and this was the first time he _noticed_.

There was something softly purple and green staining Isaac's cheek. It wasn't unusual for boys their age to have bumps and bruises and scrapes, but this one wasn't like the others received from devil-may-care childhood courage. This was something far more tender.

"What happened?" Jackson asked, brows drawn together as he spoke in a whisper. Isaac was perched on the end of Jackson's bed, toying with one of the action figures that Jackson had been gifted this year. He didn't look up, his round face and little mouth screwed into a look of utmost concentration.

"I'm not supposed to talk about it," Isaac didn't look up at Jackson, but there was a palpable tension between the two children. Something was wrong with his friend, Jackson could tell. All their lives, Jackson never went inside Isaac's house, but what Jackson did know, is that when Isaac went home, he always looked sad. He looked sad and ashamed and afraid. Jackson had always thought that maybe it was because he simply didn't want to stop playing... But there was something else there. Something he didn't yet understand. He didn't know what it was, but he noticed it.

Jackson was ten the first time he wanted to rescue Isaac. Isaac hit a growth spurt first. He was taller than Jackson, a thin, slip of a boy, with a face that was still round with youth, but growing less round as the months passed by. He seemed underfed, his eyes always deeply set in dark, sleepless circles.

Jackson knew it was because Isaac's dad yelled. He yelled so loudly that Jackson could hear. The whole neighborhood could hear. No one did anything. Everyone whispered. Wives got together around Jackson's dining room table to discuss books and gossip about what a terrible man Mr. Lahey was, and what a shame it was that Isaac lived with him.

Jackson didn't understand why no one did anything. When Isaac came to school with reddened cheeks and bruises on his chest, Jackson was angry, but parents did nothing, teachers looked the other way. He didn't understand why no one else seemed to notice. If he were older he might have reasoned that it was because Mr. Lahey was such a good swim coach. If he were wiser he might have thought that it was because people knew the system didn't really work as well as it ought to, and that things might just get worse.

But Jackson was ten and he only saw his friend hurt, with no one there to help him.

"Why don't you just run away?" Jackson demanded, but Isaac simply shook his head.

"And go where?" Isaac was defeated. He was only a child, with no strength of voice to reach out for help. _I just fell_ , he'd say, _it was an accident_ , he'd lie, _it doesn't hurt_ , he'd soothe. None of it was good enough for Jackson.

Jackson was eleven when he tried to help Isaac. His parents told him the truth of where he came from. Told him he was adopted. His parents explained that they loved him, that he was a blessing, that they wanted to bring him into their home and their lives to give him the life a little boy deserved.

It didn't seem at all fair. If anyone deserved to be given a better life, a different life, to be given care, it was Isaac. If it was possible to open your home and your life to a boy in need, why not do it again for someone truly deserving?

"Can you adopt Isaac?" he pleaded with his parents, who quickly became uneasy. He watched them exchange glances and fumble for good answers.

"No, Jackson, it doesn't work like that," they said, trying to soothe him as he grew furious and wrathful. And why didn't it work like that? If they could love him even though he wasn't theirs then why not Isaac too? It didn't seem fair... It just didn't seem fair.

_We can't. We can't. **We can't**_.

What kind of love was that? So selective and exclusionary. If they couldn't love Isaac then why should he love them?

They agreed to call children's services, so Jackson would feel more at ease. Their testimonies were limited, given anonymously, and quietly. When the social worker came, Isaac wasn't taken away. Mr. Lahey was polite and charming. Isaac lied out of fear. Things quieted down at the Lahey house afterward, but the desired results weren't achieved.

Jackson was eleven when his parents told him he wasn't allowed to play with Isaac anymore. He wasn't allowed to play with Isaac anymore because he wanted to rescue him from a situation that everyone else had turned their back on. They told Jackson it was none of his business what happened to Isaac, and that if he said anything it would make things worse for his friend. They told Jackson that if he loved Isaac he wouldn't make things worse for him. They told Jackson it was better for everyone if he looked the other way.

Jackson was eleven when he was so heartbroken, that he began to teach himself to stop noticing. To stop feeling. To stop loving. The world was cold and unfair and he wasn't going to be a part of that. He was going to be above it all. That was his decision, his goal, his mission in life. He never truly succeeded in these things, he came close, but never made it.

What he did manage was to never tell his parents he loved them ever again.

 


	24. Past - Ouch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson doesn't know how to cope with Isaac's abuse.

There were so many things that Jackson regretted in life. It was part of his physical make up now, regret. He couldn’t put those regrets aside and they started when he was young. His earliest regret was seeing abuse, and not doing a damn thing about it. 

They were kids. Eleven or so. They lived in the same neighborhood all their lives. It wasn’t always bad for Isaac. He had a few good years early on, but he grew fast for his age. He was the tallest kid in the class by seven, and even though he was thin as a rail, he looked older. There was weariness in his eyes by the time they were ten and Jackson knew why.

There were whispers at his mother’s book club all the time about it. But Jackson never realized how real it was until he saw it. He was playing basketball in his drive when he heard the shouting start. It always started with shouting.

Never two voices, just the one. Isaac didn’t seem interested in fighting back. They were just inside the garage door and Jackson could see them but not really. There were shelves in the way. What he could see was Isaac’s arms covering his head as he ducked.

Jackson’s ball bounced out of his grasp and rolled down into the water runoff at the end of the driveway as he felt a lump rise in his throat. He found his legs moving of their own volition, across the street and to the end of the Lahey’s drive. What he saw made him feel ill and afraid. A cold weight dropped in his stomach as he watched Isaac’s father strike him. _Hard_. He gasped and covered his mouth quickly to stifle the noise.

Isaac had fallen back through the door and into the house with the force of the blow, he couldn’t see Jackson, but Mr. Lahey could. It took one, venomous glance from the adult to have Jackson’s knees quaking.

It was one thing to hear about things, but something entirely different to see them.

He ran. He ran straight inside and to his mother, telling her what he saw, wanting help, not knowing what more to do. He pleas to help were met with a stern shake of her head and a shush. _Stay out of it, you’ll just make things worse, there’s nothing you can do_ , she’d said, **_It’s none of our business_**.

Jackson was the only one at school the next day who knew where the bruise across Isaac’s cheek was really from. He said nothing and did nothing, trying to harden his heart against it. What else could he do? It was, after all, none of his business.


	25. Future - Nightmarer [Isaac]

He’d give anything to have switched their places. He would have taken those pains in exchange for a brilliant smile across the street each day. He’d have lived the nightmare if it meant…

And at the same time, he wished Isaac would see him. Years this had been hanging over Jackson like a dark cloud and he walked heavy and slow like it was his cross to bear— this knowledge of how his inaction had hurt more than any blow Isaac suffered ever could.

_Pain is in the heart and mind and body and you ignored mine, you did **nothing** —_

No. That wasn’t true, Jackson reached and pleaded, but did move and didn’t make a sound. He couldn’t. There was a hand on his shoulder, squeezing and saying no, what choice did he have but to let his emotions go?

_It’s not true. I’d have given anything—_

He wished that Isaac could  **s e e** …

_If only **I** could have been **you** , instead of **me**._


	26. Future & Past - Who has to know? [Adrian Harris]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for underage/overage relationship.

_“You just need a night out. That’s all. You and Lydia fight all the time. She’ll be over it by tomorrow, you’ll be just as ready to get back on track, and you two can return to nauseating the student body as usual,”  Danny slapped Jackson’s shoulder, a little harder than necessary as they began to pack up their things, readying to leave the locker room after a long, strenuous practice. Jackson’s jaw was tightly set, and he pulled the zipper of his pack much more viciously than necessary. Yeah. He did need a night out. More than anything, he wanted a few dozen drinks. When she was mad enough, Lydia knew just where to poke a sharp stick._

_“I’ve got those new IDs made up. If we don’t hit the usual spots,” meaning no gay bars, “we should be fine. You up for it?”_

_Danny was answered with the shifting of Jackson’s shoulders under his shirt as he locked up his locker again. It was easy to read Jackson’s mood from the way he held himself. When it was just the two of them, he was usually an open book._

_“Jackson?” he inquired again, this time pressing a bit more insistently. Jackson slammed his bag down and turned toward Danny, sighing his exasperation. His brows drew together and his lips pursed in a fine thin line, twisting off to one side, and pulling downward just slightly._

_“Yeah. Yeah I’m up for it.”_

* * *

“Jackson? Jackson?!”

Jackson turned quickly, finding himself face to face with Scott. His lips were split in a wide smile, brown eyes bright as Jackson remembered. He wanted to sneer but it had been just over three years since they’d last seen each other and he wasn’t in a hurry to go pushing a friendly face away.

“Hey,” he greeted blandly, reaching up to rub a thumb against his brow. He ducked his head for a moment, shifting his weight from foot to foot as Scott caught up and approached him. What he had not expected was to be crushed in an incredibly warm, welcoming, enthusiastic embrace. Scott smelled like he’d been out by a bonfire. Earthy and smoky, full of life. He smelled wild and uninhibited.

“You came back,” Scott sounded surprised, breathless even-- as he took a step back and released Jackson from his hold. Jackson could only nod in response. Yes, he’d come back. He’d come back to finish out his schooling. He wanted to go to college where he knew people. He wanted to smell familiar smells and be around familiar things. Where he’d been hadn’t been quite right. It hadn’t been home. Beacon Hills was home, and it always would be.

“Derek didn’t tell you? I saw him first,” Jackson rubbed the back of his neck and felt along familiar scars as he thought about Derek. Scott’s expression darkened just slightly as Jackson spoke but he said nothing, just nodded in response.

“What uh... What’re you doin’ here man? At the school I mean,” Scott asked, looking up and down the familiar hallways of the high school they’d both attended. Jackson sucked in a breath and followed Scott’s path of vision, eyes lingering in the familiar doorway to their Chemistry classroom.

* * *

_Jackson shoved through the crowd of people and found his way, with Danny at his heels, to the bar. He slid into the stool and rubbed his jaw, glancing over at his friend who was just as buzzed as he was. They never stayed in one bar for very long. It was better to hop to a couple so no one got too familiar with their faces. Or at least, that’s what Danny said. Jackson could feel the alcohol he’d consumed slowing his movements and slurring his speech._

 

_“I’ll be right back, I gotta take a leak,” Danny called over the pound of the heavy rock music in the place. It was a crowded and popular bar called Blu. A place Jackson had seen many times, passing it on his way to the store or to get gas. It was a catch all for the many different sorts of people in Beacon Hills. It catered to everyone. That’s why it was always busy, and always welcoming._

_Jackson was waiting for the bartender to make her way down to where he was seated, patiently, studying the wood grain of the bar-top, minding his own business. He wasn’t paying too much attention but he felt someone approaching, he heard and saw from his peripheral vision, someone, tall, thin, pale... not Danny... settling onto the stool beside him. Jackson swiveled and looked up, readying to tell the guy the seat was taken but every word that might have left his lips died in that moment as he saw just who had taken a seat beside him._

_“Having a nice night out? At least it’s not a school night, Mr. Whittemore.”_

_He looked different out of school, but there was still a sharpness to his body language that put Jackson immediately on edge. That was something he’d always liked about Harris, too. The way he held himself commanded attention without seeming needy for it. He’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t attracted to Harris. He was... in that way that a sexually confused young man can be to a teacher, or any other nurturing older male figure in their life._

_When he and Lydia first started dating, Jackson had even had a bit of a thing for her dad, just briefly._

_Harris had glitter and something minorly greasy looking smudged along his jaw. Probably gloss from some girl, Jackson was sure. He glanced around as if that girl might show herself at any moment, claw her way around Harris’ arm, but she didn’t come. It was just them._

_“Relax, Whittemore,” Harris reached out and squeezed Jackson’s shoulder, his fingers slipping down slightly and coming to rest on the smooth plane of Jackson’s pectoral. The muscles flexed slightly under the touch. It was intimate and maybe Jackson was reading Harris wrong but it seemed intentional, “What’re you drinking?”_

* * *

“I came to see Finstock... oh and Harris, actually,” Jackson explained, smiling sheepishly at Scott. Scott’s expression darkened and Jackson suddenly felt uneasy. Scott knew something... something bad. Jackson almost didn’t want to ask, his lips parted with a breath and he considered for a moment what Scott might be frowning about. Perhaps he just was disappointed that Jackson wasn’t back to see him... Though that seemed unlikely. School was out for summer, the only people hanging around now were here for summer sporting activities.

“What? What is it?” Jackson found himself asking through a tight jaw. Scott swallowed audibly, but then again, Jackson’s hearing was hyper sensitive, so perhaps he imagined its loudness.

“Jackson,” there was a painfully long pause after his name was said that left him even more on edge, “Harris was... Harris is gone. He... He died, Jackson. He was killed.”

Jackson felt his heart drop into his stomach and it became suddenly too hard to breathe. He’d made a promise-- Now he couldn’t keep it. He started to feel shaky and it wasn’t until Scott had a firm hold on his arms that he found his voice and was able to speak. He didn’t know what he was saying until it was spilling from his lips in a hurried, breathless mess.

“I promised him I’d come back... I promised that... Oh jesus christ, Scott,” Jackson felt like he might fall to his knees.

Adrian Harris was dead.

* * *

_“What if I kissed you?” Jackson’s words came out clumsy as he cornered Harris by the bathroom. The pounding music in the club was disorienting and he had to shout but it might as well have been a whisper in this din. Danny was lost in the crowd, but closing in quickly-- they had moments to themselves and Harris was trying to get away. Jackson’s fingers curled into his lapel and pulled, drawing his teacher closer, down just enough that their foreheads brushed clumsily together._

_“We could get in a lot of trouble,” Harris sounded nervous, but Jackson was watching with blurry vision as Harris’ tongue slid across his lower lip. Jackson had already made up his mind about what he was going to do, there was no changing his mind with the idea of danger._

_“ **Who has to know?** ”_


	27. Future - It should have been [me] different [Derek]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt Fill: After the last battle, Derek doesn't get up.

Derek always got back up. He **always** did. Jackson had watched him fall what felt like a hundred times before and Derek always got back up. But this time… _This time_ …

He’d pushed Jackson to safety, he’d shoved Isaac away, he’d taken the brunt of it all, and then at the end, when the dust settled, Derek was laying in the pale moonlight and Jackson was waiting for it, waiting for Derek to find his feet again. He watched but there was no movement, no sign of strength left in Derek’s bones. He was heavy and motionless against the pavement.

"D…Derek?"

There was no answer, no response at all, and that made Jackson’s legs move, his body lurching forward and away from Isaac’s steadying grasp. He was injured, blood running down his clothes and soaking them, his limbs felt heavy and he hurt all over, but he ran full tilt to Derek’s side, skidding and losing his footing as he made his way to Derek’s side. He dropped to his knees, pain singing up through the bones as they crashed into the concrete and skidded along, tearing the fabric and scuffing his skin. Derek was a mess. Jackson didn’t want to admit it but the gashes all over looked nasty, they were gaping maws, and blood was flowing slow and sticky, pooling under his form. Jackson’s hands reached out, shakily, and grasped at Derek; one hand was fisted at his chest and the other clawed at his shoulder.

“ _Derek!_ ”

He wasn’t moving so Jackson shook him. It was a poor mimicry of living movement. Derek’s body jostled with the shake but it made no difference. It was nothing… There was _nothing_. Derek was empty.

"No no no— You can’t do this… You **can’t** …”

He bowed his head and grabbed at at Derek’s face, pinching his nose and breathing into his mouth, ( _life, take my life, take it— It should be me— not you it should be—_ ) out of sheer panic. It was the action of a desperate young man who was losing someone not for the first time. He lifted to do compressions, pumping his fist and hand against Derek’s sternum ( _come on, damnit, breathe, please_ ) and then bent again, breathing into him once more, only to be greeted by the taste of blood on Derek’s lips. It was sharp and metallic, quickly filling his senses and making him ill. ( _No, please don’t leave me here, I can’t do this without you, I can’t be this without you_ —) He straightened his spine and wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, giving a feeble groan of despair.

_It should have been different… It should have been **me**_ …

"No… You can’t… You can’t! You aren’t allowed to die on me—" Jackson was pleading with Derek, but Derek wouldn’t hear, how could he? Isaac reached to pull him away but Jackson smacked his hand, casting him aside. He didn’t want the comfort he just wanted to wallow in this moment and in this pain and in this loss. There was nothing he knew better than loss. Grief. Guilt… This was his fault, wasn’t it? He should have tried harder, fought better, been faster, he could have saved Derek if only…

He smacked a hand against Derek’s chest ( _goddamnit!_ ) and then collapsed forward, grasping at the sullied fabric like a lifeline. He buried his face there, breathing in the smell of blood and wishing it wasn’t so familiar.

Their bond was still there. The bond between and Alpha and his first Beta, who he had claimed and connected with before Jackson had ever become his Beta. Jackson could still feel it, pulsing under his skin like an electric current. The memories, the guilt, the anger, all of it was still there. It felt incredible when Derek was still ( _you can’t be dead_ ) alive, but now it was a burden he had to bear alone. ( _Let go of my shoulder, Isaac please I just—_ ) He shared more of himself with Derek than he had with anyone since becoming what he was. Derek was his maker, his kin, his brother, his leader, his— ( _you’re all I have you are my family, how can we keep it together without you, everyone will leave me without you_ —) He found himself and his rebirth and his identity in this man, this wolf, his _Alpha_.

He was crying. He was openly sobbing against the breathless chest of the person who had become his purpose and his safe haven…

And there it was just beneath the Derek’s ribcage… a sound that Jackson would cherish hearing until the day he died.

Faintly…

_Tha-thump…_


	28. Future - Signing up [Lydia]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson joins the Marines.

This was his answer to the question that had plagued him since he left high school This was what he was meant to do with himself. What better place to put his new abilities to good use than on the battlefield. It made sense. Partly because he was less likely to die than anyone else, and partly because he felt as though he needed to do something for the greater good after all the senseless murder that he was part of. His guilt and his skill drove him to the decision.

While Lydia was away for a semester, he’d signed up. He didn’t ask, he didn’t say a thing. He knew that she would have likely protested. They were already apart so much and this would only put them at farther lengths from each other but…

"You did what?" She seemed to be in disbelief when he told her. They were just sitting on his couch, talking about how great school had been so far for her one second, and the next, she was asking him what he’d been up to, why he’d only sent her hand written letters (though she appreciated the romanticism it was a bit archaic and he never placed a return address), and if he was alright.

"I joined the Marines," he answered, "just finished recruit training… I’ve got ten days leave and then I’m heading on to MOS."

She did the math, realizing he’d signed up just two days after she’d left for school. He’d made the decision without her. She’d just assumed the reason he was so unreachable was because he was so busy, but now it made sense and she was at first— _ **mad**_. It didn’t last. She couldn’t allow herself to wallow in anger when he was leaving so soon.

She had to make every second count.

So after a good smack to the face, she pulled him in close to tell him she loved him, and he kissed her with all the sincerity he could never speak aloud.


	29. Past - When we were young [Scott]

Jackson had never taken a bike ride quite this far before. Usually he stayed within the circle of his own neighborhood. Today, however, he wanted to go farther, faster, on an adventure, away from his parents, away from everything he knew.

As his little legs peddled hard, pushing him farther and faster, he heard yelling up around the bend. It sounded like a man and a woman, and he was all too familiar with the sound of yelling. He was only ten, but he knew the gravity of an argument. He knew what people yelling meant.

He sometimes heard it downstairs, his own parents threatening one another — _I’ll take everything! Even Jackson!_ — no family was perfect.

As he slowed to a halt in front of a large two story house, he saw the source of the argument. There, standing on the porch was a pretty woman [ _she looks like a mom, I bet she’s a mom_ ] crying as she pushed a little boy about Jackson’s age behind her legs. He was holding onto her, his dark, wide eyes wet with tears.

Deputy Stilinski was there, standing between them and an angry, dark man. He was shouting, abusing, yelling, spitting, he seemed like a monster.

Jackson got off his bike and dropped it, thinking about Isaac who lived across the street and the way his dad yelled and screamed like that— The sound of his bike clattering to the ground caught the attention of everyone.

"Jackson? How did you get all the way over here?" Deputy Stilinski seemed strained, stretched thin, but Jackson simply made his way up to the porch and stood between the angry man, and his scared wife and child.

He gave a haughty sniff and a glare to the slovenly man who Deputy Stilinski was holding back with a hand against his chest.

"Don’t bully people! My dad is a lawyer, he’ll put you in jail," Jackson warned. He looked back to the other little boy with a stern, hard set gaze, meant to be reassuring while Deputy Stilinski forced the man off the porch.

"Don’t worry," Jackson announced with confidence, "I’ll help you."

Jackson wasn’t yet ruined by the truth about his parents, he wasn’t yet jaded, he hadn’t rejected love just yet. In a few months time that would change, but right then, he was still a wide eyed child who only wanted to help.

Scott wouldn’t forget that, and one day, he’d repay Jackson, even when everyone else abandoned him.


	30. Past - When we were young [Stiles]

Stiles was in his class, so of course, any and all birthday functions Jackson had, Stiles was automatically invited to. Most kids didn’t want to spend time with Jackson. He was the meanest kid in class, always pushing people away, always bullying others. He stuck close to Danny and only Danny.  
  
Stiles, however, tried to be nice. That’s what his mother had always taught him… Sometimes the meanest kids are the ones who need friends the most. So when Jackson handed an invitation to Stiles for his birthday party, Stiles said thank you, and even showed up.  
  
He, Danny, Isaac, and Jackson’s cousin Adam were the only ones at the party it seemed. He was turning twelve today, which was kind of a big deal in Stiles’ opinion. He wasn’t just a kid anymore. He was almost a teenager.  
  
He’d thought long and hard about what gift he should get Jackson, knowing they didn’t really have the money to get him something fancy (though Jackson’s parents had that covered) he had to get something thoughtful. Something really good.  
  
He thought about what he would have wanted and his mind jumped to a million different places and things at once. It was hard to narrow his mind enough to focus. In the end, Stiles decided to give Jackson his most prized possession.  
  
It was a lucky rabbit’s foot key chain.  
  
Stiles had taken the time to cut out his favorite comics from the Sunday Funnies and wrapped them carefully around the soft, dark blue rabbit’s foot. It was something he’d often held onto, petted, and kept close for when he had a hard time focusing. It gave him some kind of stimulation to latch onto.  
  
It brought him good luck. He’d been holding onto this the day he’d met Scott. He’d been holding onto it when he got his first A+ on a math test. He’d been holding it when he won his first spelling bee. It was lucky.  
  
And Jackson could use some luck.  
  
When Jackson opened his gifts he seemed disinterested. His parent’s had gotten him everything he asked for and none of it seemed to make him happy. Stiles began to fidget as Jackson got closer and closer to his gift. He was worried.  
  
Maybe that was a bad idea—  
  
       What if he hates it—  
  
               What if he thinks it’s stupid—  
  
                                 What if it makes his luck worse—  
  
                                                        What if, what if, _**whatif**_ —  
  
Jackson’s fingers splayed over the tiny, wrapped parcel, his eyes reading the comics that were still in tact. Stiles had been oh so careful, and there was something there on his face that was unreadable. His tongue poked out the corner of his mouth as he painstakingly tried to preserve those comics as he unwrapped the foot.  
  
It spilled into Jackson’s lap and Stiles immediately jumped into an explanation.  
  
"It’s a lucky rabbit’s foot, and it really works. I used it all the time and it helped me on a test and a spelling bee and I thought you know, who doesn’t need a little more good luck, and I know blue is your favourite colour, or at least I think it is because your backpack is blue and so are your shoes and your pencils and a lot of your shirts so I just guessed—"  
  
Jackson looked up and met his eyes, his fingers closing tightly around the little rabbit’s foot and he nodded. He didn’t smile, but he looked at Stiles with a level of seriousness that Stiles had really only seen on the faces of adults [maybe he feels old, maybe that’s what it’s like to be twelve—] like his dad or his teachers.  
  
"Thanks, Stiles," Jackson said, and somehow, Stiles knew he meant it.


	31. Past - When we were young [Danny]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for mention of underage adopted cousin "incest". Technically not related biologically, but considered legally related. Don't want to squick anyone out too bad against their will.

Jackson rarely sought Danny out unless things were really, truly bad. Sometimes he’d come over when his parents were fighting. Other times he’d come over because he was having a hard time with kids at school. But this was the first time he came to Danny in the middle of the night. 

He heard the rocks plunking against his window pane and when he got up and headed over to the sill, he saw Jackson down there, frantic and shaking in the pale moonlight. He opened the window and leaned out—

"Jackson! It’s like one in the morning! You’re gonna get us in trouble!" he hissed down to his friend.

"Danny you have to let me up," Jackson pleaded, "I need to talk to you. I’m freaking out man. Please."

Please. That was a serious red flag. Danny nodded and motioned for Jackson to go around to the back of the house. Jackson waited patiently by the back door for Danny to let him in and practically leapt into his arms the moment the door was open. Danny let his friend crush him in an embrace as he carefully pushed the door closed with his toe.

"Shhh… Jackson okay, man, okay, come on… Upstairs. Be quiet or else my parents will wake up," Danny said, carefully pulling his friend up to his bedroom. Once they were safely behind that door, Jackson was moving across the room and sitting down heavily on the end of the bed.

"Danny I think there’s something wrong with me," Jackson said quietly, fiddling with his fingers in his lap. He wasn’t meeting Danny’s eyes and while that was nothing new, the anxiousness that had Jackson shaking like a leaf _was_.

"Jackson, what is it? What happened?" Danny asked the other thirteen year old gently, but urgently. Jackson’s head snapped up and he bit into his lower lip.

"Adam… He’s… He’s moving to San Diego. His dad got a job out there and we… we tried to run away and I… Danny I did something," Jackson hissed under his breath, looking toward the window. There was an expression of desperation crossing Jackson’s face that put Danny immediately on edge.

Danny crossed the room and closed the window, as if afraid Jackson might throw himself out of it if given the opportunity.

"You can tell me anything, you know that," Danny reassured. Jackson’s lips quivered and his mouth opened then shut over and over, floundering for the truth.

"I _did stuff_ with him,” Jackson whispered, his voice cracking, shattering, echoing into the silence that followed. Danny was surprised to say the least. Surprised at Jackson’s confession. Surprised at what he was admitting to.

“ _And they caught us_ …” Jackson added, almost inaudible. Danny crossed the space between them and sat next to him on the bed as Jackson wiped at his eyes.

"They’re never gonna let us see each other again. Even though— Even though we’re not really cousins they still said it was wrong because… Because people would think…" Jackson cupped his face in his hands. He was too young to grasp this situation he found himself in.

But Danny just wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him closer.

"It’s okay, Jacks," Danny assured him, "there’s **_nothing_** wrong with you.”


	32. Past - Recalling Cousin Adam [1]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson has a lot of reasons he can't cope with the "L word". It started young. It started with his cousin Adam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm going to warn for the next few chapters, first off, Original Male Character, secondly. Even though Jackson is in no way blood related to Adam, they are legally cousins. So, I am putting a big old trigger warning for incest all over this stuff, just to be safe.

Jackson was solitary from the very beginning. His parents doted on him, he had very few friends, and he didn’t mind any of it. He wasn’t fond of people, not really. The people he did allow himself to be fond of ( _Isaac_ ) he was cut off from by the time he was nine.

There were very few members of his family that Jackson liked. Most everyone was older than him, too old for him to understand or befriend. A majority of his cousins lived out of state in Oregon. He was an only child, so with no siblings to keep him occupied he was often left to his own devices. He’d never had a very strong imagination, so he spent most of his time reading or maybe playing video games on occasion. On nice days he spent all his time outside in the driveway fooling around with his basketball and avoiding the urge to go see Isaac. His parents insisted he keep his distance from the other boy.

There was only one exception to his solitude. _Just one_.

When Jackson was nine, his uncle William divorced his wife ( _she was an alcoholic; after two failed attempts at getting her through rehab and sober, no one blamed him for this decision_ ) and left Oregon to be closer to his brother.William needed that familial support system and he trusted no one more than he brother. When he moved to Beacon Hills he brought Jackson’s cousin Adam with him. Adam was a slightly pudgy, flaxen haired boy with a smattering of freckles and a poor temper. He was angry at his mother and took it out on the world, and by extension due to his residence on said world, _Jackson_.

At first, he and Adam only fought. They were both just children, the only children in the family who were at all close in age. Everyone else was already in high school, save for them. Adam was a year older than Jackson, and at first, he used that to lord over his cousin. He was loud and pushy, constantly telling Jackson what to do, how to do it, and when, which drove Jackson crazy. So many hours between them were spent just _**arguing**_. Jackson fought against Adam’s bossy behavior as much as he could until quite close to everything they did became a fight.

“ _I’m gonna play basketball_ ,” Jackson would sniff pointedly and scoop up his ball, readying to go outside in a huff. Then Adam would knock the ball from his hands and insist, “ _No, we’re playing Smash Brothers_.”

And then the shoving and fighting would break out and their parents would have to intervene, and in the end, Adam would get his way because he was just better at calming down and appealing to their parents. “ _I just wanted him to play with me and he didn’t want to, he doesn’t like me!_ " Jackson dreaded Adam’s regular visits for the first year after he moved to Beacon Hills. And then, somewhere after that year things began to change.

Shortly after Jackson turned ten, and Adam eleven, the arguments grew more and more infrequent. They’d settled instead, into a routine. Adam would dictate what they did and Jackson just fell into line with it. Following his direction was so much easier than fighting against him, and it brought a sense of peace to their lives when he just _obeyed_ the other boy’s wishes. When Adam came over, Jackson tolerated it more and more. He shared his things with less and less protest and bent to the will of his cousin quicker and quicker. It just happened that way, without a catalyst or a driving force. It was as if all the dust just settled and they were able to finally get along. Jackson’s submission made their lives simple and even enjoyable after a while.

By the time Jackson turned eleven he’d grown fond of Adam, and Adam in turn was very fond of Jackson. Protective of him, even. What had started out as the most tumultuous relationship became the most important relationship in Jackson’s life. They were soon inseparable, Jackson shadowing Adam wherever he went and looking to the bigger, older boy for protection and guidance. To Jackson, Adam had slowly become everything he needed in a friend. Someone he could count on and look up to.

And then Jackson found out he was adopted, and everything he knew to be true was turned upside down. He realized he and Adam weren’t really related… _And that… **that changed it all**_.


	33. Past - Recalling Cousin Adam [2]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson has a lot of reasons he can't cope with the "L word". It started young. It started with his cousin Adam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm going to warn for the next few chapters, first off, Original Male Character, secondly. Even though Jackson is in no way blood related to Adam, they are legally cousins. So, I am putting a big old trigger warning for incest all over this stuff, just to be safe.

Jackson had once thought himself  capable of understanding and feeling love. The idea of it, however, terrified him. Something so gravitous should never be taken lightly. Love was something he’d wanted to give freely of to people who deserved it because in his life, he had love in spades, didn’t he? His parents adored him, doted on him with gifts, caved to his every whim, that was love wasn’t it?

When he was eleven years old, his parents explained to him that he was adopted. This changed his perspective of everything. That made their love mean more, didn’t it? They chose to love him. So they could surely choose to love anyone. This was a wonderful thought, because he knew someone deserving of love. He knew Isaac Lahey needed love; the one neighbor boy who his parents discouraged him from playing with needed it more than anyone it seemed. Isaac was an automatic invite to all Jackson’s parties due to his closeness and Jackson knew that the too-tall adolescent boy needed to be away from his father. He could see it even then.

He asked his parents if they’d love Isaac and they turned him away, explaining it didn’t work that way. They chose him but they couldn’t choose Isaac and Jackson didn’t understand why not. Love suddenly looked so much more conditional and that didn’t sit well with Jackson.

In retaliation, Jackson chose to no longer love his parents. He did not stop caring, but the words never fell from his lips anymore. He squashed that automatic reflex of ‘I love you too’ and buried it deep inside himself. During this time he stuck closer than ever to Adam, who he’d begun to truly bond with. He spent more and more time at Adam’s house, rather than his own, staying for days at a time.

He explained to Adam how much he detested his parents and how he didn’t understand how someone could choose to make their love conditional. Love was so complicated and so strange, a concept too big for Jackson to grasp. It brought so many questions to mind, almost as many as being adopted brought.

_"Hey Adam?"_

_"Yep?"_

_"Even thought we’re not really related to each other, do you still love me?"_

_"Who says I loved you?"_

_"No one… I just thought—"_

_"Stoppit. Don’t be sad. I was kidding. God, you should see your face, dude… ‘Course I do, stupid. No one’s gonna tell me that just because we don’t share the same blood that we can’t still love each other. We’re family."_

Adam’s love was a love that Jackson could grasp. He could wrap his fingers around it and feel how tangible it was. It was the dominating emotion in his life. What confused him was how it changed over time. Slowly at first, and then all at once.

Jackson started to notice things about Adam that he’d never seen before. He didn’t really pay these things much attention, but they were there, none the less. Little things, like the freckles that dusted his nose and cheeks in the summer when he spent lots of time outside, the gold in his hair, the different colours in his eyes, the deepening of his laugh as he hit puberty and began to change, get taller, firmer, losing the fullness in his cheeks and the pudge around his belly. All of it seemed like nothing more than small moments of awareness and admiration.

Jackson became more aware of himself as well. He was changing and growing, all too rapidly. By the time he was twelve he’d shot up several inches, finally gaining the height he’d always needed and wanted, he firmed up all over, and then, when his thirteenth birthday was just around the corner, he no longer saw a child when he looked in the mirror. Many things about his life had aged him too rapidly. He felt as though he was too old for his age. The situation with Isaac never stopped weighing on him, though he had all but completely cut the boy out of his life, and still this idea of love and its strangeness perplexed him.

He wished, sometimes, that he could just let these thoughts and feelings go. Give them away and give his life and all his control to someone else. He wanted to entrust himself to anyone who could bear the weight of him, because he couldn’t puzzle these things out himself. There was too much pressure to be perfect. A new fear had risen in Jackson, that one day, his parents might choose to take their love back from him and he was torn between coldness and striving for perfection so that they never would.

Adam was the only person he had who understood him.

_"I get it, man. I always thought my mom loved us unconditionally. Yanno? Then she told my dad that Jack made her feel things she could never feel with us. She thinks I didn’t hear but I did…"_

_"Jack?"_

_"Jack Daniels…"_

_"Your dad loves you though, right?"_

_"Sometimes."_

_"I love you."_

_"I know. I love you too, man."_

Jackson could always count on Adam. When things went wrong, Adam was the first there and the last to leave. He understood Jackson in the way he wanted to be understood. Adam was a warm pillar of light, and it was a laughable memory now, to think that once they practically hated one another. The idea that they could ever have felt or ever feel anything again other than affection and kinship was foreign to them.

On Jackson’s thirteen birthday, after all his party guests had gone and it was just the two of them hanging out together in his room, having one of their usual sleepovers, something that had been slowly transforming, became apparent. They were noticing each other. Not in the way that friends do, but something deeper and something that, blood or not, in their situation, was wrong. It was as if while they’d slept one night, everything had changed and now, when Jackson heard Adam laugh it made his throat tighten and mouth go uncomfortably dry.

Adam could feel it too. There was a new found pressure on them, something that hadn’t been there before. A tension every time they stole a glance at each other. Their eyes couldn’t quite meet for more than a moment anymore, and Jackson was both terrified and exhilarated by this. They said nothing and did nothing, but as they laid side by side, not for the first time, they laid a little closer together, and Adam’s knuckles bumped against Jackson’s wrist in a gesture that seemed totally innocuous but felt electric.

This was wrong. This was so terribly wrong…

Despite this change that was so obvious and powerful, they didn’t act on it. Not really. There were more lingering touches here and there, closer sleeping arrangements when they spent the night, warmer smiles, and when they said their ‘I love you’s as they always had, they realized how much more they meant, so they came out whispered. There was something boyish and clumsy about this development between them. It was not delicate or gentle, there were no butterflies or sweet nothings. It was warm and silly; there was shoving and laughter and moments where they almost— they’d be so close, leaned in, right there in the heat of the moment— but never close enough. Never.

Not until they ran away. The blissful, clumsy discovery was soon over shadowed by a dark cloud, something completely out of their control. Jackson would soon learn that love was too big and paper thin; you could poke holes in love and tear it apart.


	34. Past - Recalling Cousin Adam [3]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson has a lot of reasons he can't cope with the "L word". It started young. It started with his cousin Adam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm going to warn for the next few chapters, first off, Original Male Character, secondly. Even though Jackson is in no way blood related to Adam, they are legally cousins. So, I am putting a big old trigger warning for incest all over this stuff, just to be safe.

Jackson, thirteen and three months old, was sleeping soundly in his bed, all his blankets kicked away with the window open, the warmth of an early autumn night wafting through to leave him comfortable but a little sweaty. His lanky limbs were sprawled across the mattress, his mouth agape as he snored quietly. He had no clue as he slept his world was changing around him and that things he held dear were about to be irreparably damaged. He just slept, completely dead to the waking world.

He didn’t hear the intruder in his bedroom at first, as they clambered up the trellis on the side of the house and through his open window. He didn’t hear those approaching noises and he couldn’t anticipate what was coming. He stayed there, soundly asleep right until there was a warm hand clamped over his mouth, keeping him quiet.

Jackson jerked away and started to struggle, the response automatic to being restrained and silenced. He yelled against the palm and then as his vision came into focus and he could concentrate he realized—

"Jack— Jack, it’s me! Shh. It’s okay. It’s okay… It’s just me," Adam was there, above him, tear tracks staining his full, freckled cheeks. He looked an absolute mess. As Jackson slowly eased up, relaxing under Adam’s strong hand across him, Adam let up.

Jackson sat up quickly, his chest twisted up with a mix of different emotions. Confusion, agitation, fear, all surged together through his blood stream as he looked on, brows knit and lips parted in a bewildered but concerned expression. Adam lifted his thumb and chewed on the side of his nail.

"What’s going on?" Jackson hissed under his breath, grasping at Adam’s hand and pulling it away from his mouth. It was a habit that Adam seemed unable to break but Jackson wanted him to. Badly. He couldn’t even explain why he felt that way about such a harmless little tick but Adam was always so strong and straightforward. Well put together, for a fourteen year old boy. His life, his mother, his father, all the pressure that had been put on his family and everything he had seen had aged him too soon.

And yet, Jackson had never seen him like this. His eyes were wet and he was emotional and shaking and chewing his nail and looking around as if he was being chased or haunted, maybe both.

"My… My dad got a job in San Diego. We’re moving… We’re moving away, Jack, I don’t wanna go. I tried to tell him. I tried to tell him I didn’t want to leave. I don’t wanna start over. Not again. And not somewhere where you’re not gonna be. I’m freaking out. I… I snuck out and…. ** _Fuck_**.”

He was whispering and frantic and as he cursed lowly, he leaned forward to dig the heels of his hands into his eyes. Jackson had never seen him like this and it scared him. What scared him even more was the idea that he’d be gone… William was going to take Adam away… To San Diego. That was too far. He couldn’t just get on his bike and ride there.

"He can’t do this," Jackson insisted quietly, but he knew fully well that he could. It wasn’t as though he was leaving the state so he was well within his legal rights as Adam’s parent. Jackson felt his heart sinking. He felt his whole world, his support system, everything he knew and loved, it was crumbling out from under his feet, leaving him to free-fall into that place again. That lonely place. That place he’d been when Adam came into his life.

"I wish we could run away," Jackson whispered after a few moments of silence. Adam lifted his head and stared at him with wide, red rimmed eyes. _Run away_ …

Why not?

"Let’s do it. I know you’ve got some allowance money, right? And I do too… What if we just took that money, grabbed our bikes, and ran away," Adam was speaking so quickly, Jackson had to let the idea he’d actually proposed to being with to sink in. _Run away_?

He thought of his life without Adam right here with him. He thought of losing his protector, the one person he could count on in this world, he thought of never getting to see Adam, he thought of being alone as he walked through the halls… Everything in his life he’d built around Adam. How he dealt with the world, how he coped with other people, how he had fun, how he gauged love and the way it worked. He’d built himself entirely around this one person… This one and only person.

"Okay. Let’s go. Lemme pack some stuff and get my money. It’ll take like two minutes," Jackson was up in a flash, moving quickly around his room to grab things and shove them in his backpack. Adam was there, helping him do so as quickly as possible every step of the way. This was their solution.

_We’ll run away to somewhere that no one can find us. No one can touch us._


	35. Soul to Squeeze [Jackson & Scott]

Jackson leaned forward, palms pressing into the edge of the counter so hard that it left indentations in his flesh. Scott reached for him but Jackson just jerked his shoulder out of reach, throwing his hands up, lips drawn back from his teeth, curling in a slight snarl. 

"I can’t always be what you want me to be, Scott. Just give me… Give me some time to calm down," Jackson protested. Scott sighed through his nose and leveled Jackson with a stern expression.

"Jackson, I just want to help," he insisted. Jackson folded his arms over his chest and leaned back into the counter, eyes averted, unable to face that expression that he knew Scott would be wearing. One of warmth and concern.

"Some things I just have to figure out on my own… Be patient with me."

Scott stepped closer, reaching out again and this time Jackson let him close, let him touch his cheek, and let him kiss some comfort back into his bones. Someday soon Jackson hoped to be able to return that gesture.


	36. Wounded

Jackson’s lips were dry and cracked as he fought with his body, struggling for wakefulness. He felt as though he couldn’t breathe, his lungs just wouldn’t fill. He had to grab hold of something but there was nothing to hold onto. His bed felt like a pit; he was choking. A broken sob left him as the sudden jolting sensation of a fall when there was no fall brought him to the surface and he woke.

Sick. He was sick. His skin felt like it was on fire, he was shaking and buried under blankets trying to get warm and get cool but being too warm and too cool all at once. A fever had set in in the night and now he was taken by it. Could werewolves really get sick? Or was this something more sinister?

He pawed around at his body and suddenly his leg felt like it was tearing open. His fingers brushed across an open wound, a claw had buried deep in his thigh and torn him. He wasn’t healing— It had been no  _ordinary_  claw. He wasn’t sure where or when he’d been injured. His memory could not conjure up the information he so desperately needed. Everything still felt like a dream.

Maybe  _this_  was a dream, and the dream of falling had been the reality…

Lines were blurring and he howled feebly.

He  _howled_.


	37. Scent [Jackson & Scott]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Slightly NSFW.

Scott’s nose is between his thighs, breathing him in while he grasps at the sheets, hips in the air and face pressed to the pillow. It’s overwhelming, the way he can feel every breath in and out as it ghosts across his skin. His mouth waters and he feels wet all over. Sweat prickles along his his fevered brow like a wreath of ice. He’s never felt so needy before, so ready, so open—

" _Scott,_ " his voice doesn’t even sound like his own.

"Quiet," Scott’s tone is hushed and ragged.

He takes another long breath in while Jackson mewls with impatience.


	38. cracked skull

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> poetry. whoops, sorry.

If you could bash it against the rocks and break it open, the scent of 

             _r o t_

would  

                              _g u s h_

from the inside.

Inside his mind things have had too long to  

_f e s t e r_

maggots of doubt have chewed their way through the reeking, grey matter.

From the outside you’d  

_t h i n k_

that he was fine, that he was normal, the same as he’d always been.

He’s given no clue to what’s been going on beneath the surface,  

_h i d d e n_

behind soft tissue, muscle, veins, and locked inside bone.

His teeth flash and his cheeks crease with that charming smile; don’t look, it’s a  

                                                                   _t r i c k_.

All that he hides, all that lingers, all that has  

_d e c a y e d_

it’s just there, sloshing behind his eyes inside his skull.

His thick, 

 _c r a c k e d_  

                                                                                 **skull**.

 


	39. Real [Stiles & Jackson]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i had a feel sorry.

He opens his eyes and the light floods in, burning, stinging, he can’t tell if they’ve just started to water or if he’s been crying in his sleep again. His lips part and his mouth tastes like ( _mountain_ ) ash, his lips dry and cracking like papyrus in the heat of the desert.

He’s been alone for eight days now, or was it nine? If it’s even real at all. He can’t find that center, that moment of truth. He can’t reach out with these clammy hands and pull back the curtain. He can’t even manage to crawl anymore. The space between the bed and the door seems to stretch on forever, a carpeted abyss of darkness.

He remembers, vaguely, a game he’d play as a child, jumping from place to place in his disheveled room. 

_Don’t touch the carpet, the carpet is lava._

"I don’t want to play this game anymore, I want to walk, I want… I want to…" 

He looked at the door but it seemed glassier than before, hazy, full of a clouded liquid. It was…

 _Is it a door or a jar…_?

The light was coming from the gap there, where the door was still open, a sliver, a crack, a gap in his mind. It was a deceitful opening. No light could come in. Not possible, no way, only dark things—

"Stiles?" the door swung wider, a silhouette ringed in the dingy yellow of  a hallway light stood there, recognizable yet unfamiliar. In the back of his mind he felt a niggling, a tug on a bell.

He knew that voice, the square of those shoulders, the cords of muscle along those arms, he’d seen them before, they were there, seeping out of some locked up piece of his memory. It was bleeding forward, oozing up his throat unnaturally and wetting his heavy tongue.

"Jackson?" he wheezed the name. He had wanted a familiar face but he wasn’t sure why this one. Jackson who had tormented him, taunted him, teased him, another t word that Stiles could feel somewhere in the far reaches of his crowded thinking space but—

"Jesus, I thought you might never come out of it," Jackson approached the bedside and it was then that Stiles took into account that this was not his room. This was not his home. This was Jackson’s apartment and god only knows why he’d ended up here.

"What… time is it—" a smell, pungant and floral, rushed up to his nose as Jackson approached, "is… is that tea?"

"Uhm," there was a resounding tone of defensiveness edging into that ‘um’ of Jackson’s, as if he might put up some sort of masculine front. Stiles, were his body not feeling so sore and heavy, might have lifted himself up properly to look for himself. 

"The chick at the store said this stuff helps with nightmares," Jackson said, setting the old mug down on the bedside. Stiles could see the Beacon Hills High colors and Jackson’s number on the mug. Something he was sure his parents must have custom ordered for him as a gift. They tried to be thoughtful parents, but Stiles knew that somehow, for all the things they could have given him, Jackson never really got what he needed from his parents. 

Still… That was no reason to not hate the guy for all that privilege he squandered. Right?

He was getting side tracked already, his mind following many strands to many different places all at once, none of them helpful, none of them cohesive. 

"You left," Stiles sounded unsure of himself. He looked around, trying to see if there was some other sign that this was real. He wanted to know he was awake, and one number on a cup wasn’t enough. Not anymore. Not after-

"For like, twenty minutes. You didn’t die. You’re fine. Whatever this is, it’ll pass as soon as we find that thing and kill it," Jackson scoffed, helping Stiles into an upright position. The strain of sitting made the muscles all along Stiles’ back burn. It was too much, too foggy, too real, too unreal, he needed something, anything, just ca—

"Let me see your hands," Stiles croaked, focusing on the smell of the tea, the smell of the linens, the smell of Jackson’s cologne, the smattering of freckles on his nose, the freckles on his nose, the freckles—

"What?"

He didn’t wait, just grabbed, pressing Jackson’s fingers into fists. He held them there, ignoring the imploring gaze of green eyes while he slowly let Jackson go. One by one he pulled Jackson’s fingers away from his palm, uncurling the fists he’d forced into place, feeling the grain of his fingerprints while counting under his breath. 

"Seven… Eight.. Nine…"

"I can’t believe I’m putting up with your crap, what is this man? I get you some tea and you act like we’re suddenly having a shared moment." Jackson wanted to sound scathing, but mostly he sounded concerned. Stiles looked up from his counting and met Jackson’s eyes.

"Just making sure it’s real," Stiles exhaled, looking away toward the tea that was sitting at the bedside. He watched the steam curl effortlessly upward and dissipate. 

"Is it?" Jackson asked. 

"Yeah. No way could I dream up something this stupid," his lips split slightly with the weary smile that stretched across them as he reached for the tea.


	40. understanding [Stiles & Jackson]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm on a roll with this pairing

It was like coming up for air, slow, gasping, breaking the surface, scattering droplets of water, ripples moving outward, a wake of tiny waves stretching and touching.

It was cold but his lungs burned; every breath in felt like the first he’d had in years. His eyes stung and he reached with shaking hands to wrap his fingers tightly around the arms of one who could understand. One who he understood.

He gripped tightly and the screaming— the screaming grew louder but he didn’t let go. He pulled, drawing close the one who cried so painfully. He knew that plague, he knew that nightmare, he felt that struggle in his own bones. The hum of that agony resonated in his own bones, thrumming through him like a symphony.

Jackson inhaled.

"Shh," he whispered, clutching Stiles against his chest while he ripped out of the darkness, clawed at Jackson’s shirt, and stumbled back into the light. Jackson felt wetness and heat from sobs against his shoulder as those cries died down to shaking breaths, quieter, softer… Breaking, but not broken. The carpet burned his knees and the blankets were tangled around them like a nest of unrest.

"I’ve got you," Jackson promised.

_I’ve. **Got.** You._

Stiles exhaled.


	41. come back to bed [Stiles & Jackson]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is exactly what the title suggests.

He hadn’t gone far, just a few steps, but he heard the sharp inhale like a gust of wind. Stiles’ heart began to beat slightly faster, and as Jackson turned, in the pale early morning light that barely peaked through the blinds Jackson saw fear contorting his face.

Their eyes met in the dimness, and when Stiles rasped out a simple request ‘ _Come back to bed_ ’, Jackson’s legs moved before his mind had a chance to catch up.

He slipped right back under the cover of sheets and tangled into a desperate embrace. Stiles started to say something, his tongue hurriedly trying to form an excuse, but it was pointless, then more than ever.

Jackson’s chest rumbled with a growl, one a reassurance, not meant to strike fear. It was a reflex, like brushing away tears as they rolled down a cheek, or closing his eyes when he leaned in for a kiss.

            “ **It’s… Just shut up, Stiles… I know**.”

Stiles didn’t say another word….

Or at least, he didn’t for about five minutes…

            **“Did you seriously just tell me to shut up?”**

**     “What?”**

**             “Dude! Here I am pouring my heart out to you and you’re telling me to shut up—”**

**               “Oh for the love of…”**

**            “Jackson? Hey! Hey where are you going with the blanket!? It’s MY blanket! Jackson!”**


	42. to be with [Stiles & Jackson]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> slightly nsfw

If he could put it to words, Jackson would call it peaceful. Their minds, so busy, so full of guilt, plagued with images they can’t erase, can’t escape, cant— It’s quiet. Just…. quiet. Save for the sound of hearts beating, breath coming shorter, skin gently meeting… Jackson bends to Stiles’ winds, like the branches of a willow tree, welcoming the stirring of something soft among his leaves. Stiles rushes through Jackson, watching his actions create warmth, create laughter, create light.

It’s clumsy and it’s meandering, sudden and welcomed like a sun shower on a hot summer day. It’s relief.

If Jackson had to put it to words, he’d say it was peaceful. Not many things were these days.


	43. to be with [Derek & Jackson]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> slightly nsfw

It’s Jackson’s idea. And not so much idea. No. That’s not the right word. It’s his demand. His imagined right. His fingers curl around Derek’s clothes and pull him close and he begs for it. He begs for the chance to let Derek take the reigns. He begs for the moment of quiet that can only come when he surrenders himself to the one who made him and unmade him.

He wishes for the distraction that feeling Derek’s lips against him as he breathes heavy, damp, and ragged in his ear can bring. And Derek gives. He gives because what else can he do? He’s no alpha, no leader; but with this, with Jackson, all those mistakes… They’re farther away. Far enough that he can breathe easier. Breathe Jackson. Breathe in something that is his, and his alone.


	44. In my tribe [Jackson/Scott/Lydia]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> an ot3 musing

Of course, it’s Lydia who holds them together at the end of the day. When their at one another’s throats, when the moon makes them heated and crazed, when they need an anchor, when they need a reason to pull back and just rest… just be…

It’s her. It’s Lydia.

She becomes their moon and they can lean in close and howl in her ears to drown out the screams that reach her late in the night. In their arms she is desired, admired, adored, loved…

And she watches them. She guides them with her natural leadership into each other. She sweeps her fingers along their jaws and brings them together just as she brings that togetherness to her.

She is the piece that completes the puzzle.

In an odd way, it should not have worked. Jackson was there first. Jackson was Lydia’s first real love and Lydia was Jackson’s… But there had always been a lacking. A hesitation. They weren’t open. They weren’t honest.

Scott fit there, becoming their honesty, and they became his depravity, his carnality, his safe haven, his family. 

When others looked it, it didn’t make sense.

Lydia made jokes about building a harem.

Jackson puffed out his chest and shrugged a shoulder, daring anyone to judge.

And Scott beamed, cheeks rosy and lips split wide with a grin and eyes bright with pride.

Of course, it was all thanks to Lydia. Her sharpness, her intuition, her ability to plainly voice her desires, her willingness to give Jackson what he needed, her wanting to take what she wanted, her, her her…

It’s always been her.

The reason is always Lydia.


	45. a future worth living [Stiles/Lydia/Jackson]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> another ot3 musing

He feels guilt at first. His fingers brush over an old birthday gift, a rabbits foot, and he thinks of bright eyed Stiles who gave so much thought to this one little gift and it’s still with him even now. He couldn’t bare to part with it and now they’re older, they’re graduating, and Jackson… His thoughts wander. His eyes linger in places they shouldn’t. College had separated Jackson and Lydia, like so many other things, and it was chance or possibly fate that landed Jackson in the same place as Stiles.  


He had a type. That was rapidly becoming obvious. The older he got the more he realized that wits and sarcasm were his draw. It didn’t matter who, or maybe, deep down, it really did, and it was always going to be one of them.

He’d never imagined it could be both.

It felt like cheating the first time his fingers fumbled into the front of Stiles’ pants, tongue lazily touching what he’d always considered to be forbidden territory. He had always imagined he’d sooner be wringing Stiles’ neck rather than kissing it.

Lydia didn’t mind. She encouraged. She directed. She instructed from the speakers, watching through a steady skype feed as they clumsily found each other. She inserted herself into the mix, a powerful force of chemistry.

Matching text messages would reach them midday, a list of instructions, a designated time, and it was both physical and mental… She might as well have had them on leashes.

It didn’t become so real, so intense until the day she was there, red hair and sharp eyes. She knew the moment she looked at them…

"You two should have done this a long time ago," of course her tone implied more than just the two. She implied the three. The three of them.

Graduation brings a new step, a new wave of closeness, an apartment, shared by three.

Stiles makes coffee and Lydia peruses her work on her computer in one of Jackson’s t-shirts, nothing else. Jackson wears his glasses and it makes Stiles smile. They develop a rhythm that was unexpected. It’s steady, like a heart beating. They don’t question the chemistry or the absurdity.

When Jackson comes home and the bathroom door is wide open, steam from a shared shower between Stiles and Lydia pouring out to beckon him closer he feels a tug in his heart and his fingers rub across that keychain he’s had for so many years.

When Lydia comes home late in the evening to see Stiles holding Jackson in the kitchen, lips pressed to his ear as he whispers reassurances, promises of forgiveness, and a lift of blame for things that Jackson still battles with every time he closes his eyes she just slides away and lets them have those moments. Only they can understand the nightmarish guilt they have in common.

When the moon comes and Jackson’s skin burns and his blood boils Lydia directs Stiles to soothe with touch while she keeps him anchored to the present, her fingers wrapped in his own as he fights his inner demons.

When they’re hired into the station, Jackson and Stiles don’t work together at first, but eventually it just makes sense to. Beacon Hills needed them. Beacon Hills would always need them as much as they needed each other.

They shared a penance for the deaths on their hands in the station, working to unravel the plague of mysterious death that had hung like a dark cloud over the town since before they were born.

What should not have worked, simply did.

At first it had felt like cheating, and Jackson’s hands trembled when they touched soft skin and he kissed unfamiliar lips. Then it felt like something different. With her there, hands over his own, guiding, directing, reassuring, it felt like home.

They became his home.


	46. pack [Jackson/Erica/Isaac]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> yet another ot3 musing

Maybe it totally makes sense, maybe it doesn’t make any sense at all. It starts out like anything else might, with a kiss, a lingering touch, but this time, there’s more than two pairs of lips. There’s an overwhelming sense that this is right, that this is home, that this… This is how things were supposed to be.

The sense that they could find solace in each other was overwhelming. Jackson kissed away years of hurt when he buckled to his knees for them, begging forgiveness, begging for a chance to start over. This was new beginnings. This was family.

Erica smiles more gently when she’s with them. Isaac can feel a little less bitter when his fingers are wrapped in theirs. They can just exist, softly, quietly, intimately with one another.

When they lay together in a bed just a bit too small, a tangle of limbs and blonde hair the world that wounded them all is just a little farther away.


	47. desire [Scott & Jackson]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nsfw

Jackson’s back met the carpet and it dug into his skin, burning pleasantly as Scott descended on him like an ocean wave, rushing into all of his senses and overwhelming him with the salt of his skin and the wet of his tongue. Every push of his hips, every press of hard muscle, was like a new wave lapping at his shore. He grabbed for purchase in Scott, digging rivers into the smooth planes of his back with blunt nails, marks that would fade instantly but be felt for eons. Jackson gasped, his breath in was full of Scott, and his breath out was just the same. 

“ _ **Scott**_.”


	48. desire [Stiles & Jackson]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> nsfw

There’s something about Stiles kisses that make everything else Jackson has ever tasted seem like ash in comparison. It’s something in the way he’s both insistent and hesitant. His tongue tastes faintly of bitter coffee, his lips are damp and soft, his hands are…   


Jackson had never given them (or any part of Stiles for that matter) much thought, but their strength, the way they could pull him apart, open him up, and make him feel for just a few feverish moments like he was…  _Don’t say it. Don’t even think it. It’s only temporary. It’s just relief. It’s just a moment. It’ll pass.  
_

He bowed into the curvature of Stiles’ body, fingers fitting neatly against the hollows of his ribcage where he could feel that heartbeat hammer against them. He closed his eyes and groaned in relief, his whole being feeling the catharsis rush through like morphine to numb the many pains he carried.


	49. A Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jackson's dreams are plagued with guilt, and not just his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For added effect read while listening to Lose Your Soul by Dead Man's Bones~

He felt something there, a tension in that piercing gaze. Derek’s eyes were a color that Jackson couldn’t quite name, his dark brow and the set of his smile were wrong. All wrong. He felt naked and he felt afraid…

The beats echoed through the locker room, a song all too appropriate, Derek had chosen it, there was a meaning here. He wasn’t sure if it was meant to scare him away, or draw him closer, but as he felt a hand on his shoulder so close to the still healing wounds on his neck, he couldn’t bring himself to actually care about Derek’s intentions. The squeeze, the push, the directness of it all.

There was an intent there that didn’t make sense.

When they stood at the threshold of the Hale House ruins Jackson felt a jolt of a memory that wasn’t his own.

_I know this place_ …

He could feel the darkness. The death in the air.

_No, no, no_ …

In the darkness he felt the creeping sensation of fear gripping him, causing his throat to close up.

_**No**_.

There was darkness in Derek’s complicated eyes.

This was no promise. No fulfillment of Jackson’s wishes. This was… This was a trap.

_Nobody cares_.

Jackson feels a strange sensation of dejavu as he looks around and the walls seem to whisper words he can hear in Derek’s voice but those lips don’t move… Something wasn’t quite right here.

_Wouldn’t there be someone here… to save you_ …

He could smell smoke and blood and singed hair and burning flesh. It was choking him as Derek closed in on him, this time, there was no one here to save him. Scott was nowhere to be found as he was crowded into the corner, feeling the wood on his skin, still warm as if the fire had only just stopped burning. It was  _burning_  him.

"Derek please— I don’t—" his voice feels too hoarse in his throat like all he’s been breathing is smoke for days, he can taste ash in his mouth,  _"I don’t **deserve**  it._”

Even as Derek tears open his shirt and his claws dig into Jackson’s side where the ghostly feeling of a bite that both hasn’t happened yet and has happened already is causing his breath to come shorter, faster, harder.

“ _ **Don’t you? You’ve always been a bit of a snake, Jackson**_.”

Derek’s claws twist into him and Derek’s nose is at his throat, his teeth, he can feel them there, and the house— He can hear screams from the basement.

"Derek… Derek we have to… We have to save them, they’re burning, please, we have to—"

Derek’s knees hit the wood and it cracks, flames spitting from the old gaps between the boards to lick at them as he sinks his teeth into Jackson’s side and from the grip of teeth he can feel it. He feels the poison spread and he chokes on the taste of old, dead blood… Blackness sputters from his lips and he chokes on it as his skin begins to feel slick and his muscles start to hurt, and then his bones ache as they stretch and swell—

"No!!"

A horrified wail of terror rips from his throat and he can feel it. He can hear Matt’s whispers in his ear, the Hale family crying in the other.

_Some people just deserve to die… It’s justice.  
_

**_Oh. You’re gonna lose your soul… You’re gonna lose your soul tonight._ **

Jackson looks down at his hands and sees the scales and he sees his blackened blood dripping from Derek’s chin as it paralyzes him and he collapses into the slowly crumbling floor into the fire below with his family.

"Jackson!"

He reaches a hand out but there’s a voice in his ear. He can hear an Argent hissing even as Jackson tries to grab for Derek and pull him away from his death.

_No_. Gerard hisses.  _No. He deserves to die. It’s justice, Jackson. All monsters deserve to die.._

Jackson’s own scream woke him, pulling him from the fire and back into his bed, the sheets shredded and dampened with sweat. He could still feel it against his skin, flames licking him as scales spread…

He looked over at his ipod where it was docked on the speaker, still playing the song from where it had found it deep in the recesses of his music library. 

He got up, legs feeling like jello, and clumsily grabbed for the ipod as the music faded away and he knocked it off the speaker, throwing it across the room it crashed through the drywall.

He collapsed against his dresser and felt hot tears rolling down his cheeks. He looked over at his bed where he’d fallen asleep on his studies and wondered how it could look so normal, so… innocent.

It was times like these he wished he wasn’t alone.


End file.
